Application of Parallel Numerical Flow Solvers Invoking Advanced Turbulence-Transport Models to Aircraft Components

The accurate numerical simulation of aircraft components especially at off-design conditions requires an appropriate computational modeling of the entire flow problem. In such circumstances, the predictive quality of the flow’s gross characteristics is governed by seemingly subtle details pertaining to the representation of turbulence in apparently innocuous portions of the flow. In this study, the performance of a family of advanced turbulence-closure models in flows of aerodynamic relevance is analyzed with respect to the accuracy of flow physics representation and the applicability in industrial parallel computing. Several exemplary threedimensional test cases employing up to 6.8 million grid nodes using 128 PEs on a CRAY T3E were investigated to assess these issues. First results demonstrate the superior predicitive accuracy of advanced models in complex flow situations as well as the feasibility of such computations employing MPP systems even for large-size application-oriented aerodynamic configurations.